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The discovery of mirror neurons in the frontal lobes of monkeys, and their potential relevance to human brain evolution — which I speculate on in this essay — is the single most important "unreported" (or at least, unpublicized) story of the decade. I predict that mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology: they will provide a unifying framework and help explain a host of mental abilities that have hitherto remained mysterious and inaccessible to experiments. MIRROR NEURONS and imitation learning as the driving force behind "the great leap forward" in human evolution [6.29.00] By V.S. Ramachandran
Introduction
by In 1995, to an audience of 6,000 scientists, V.S. Ramachandran (known to friends and colleagues as "Rama") delivered the inaugural "Decade of the Brain" lecture at the Silver Jubilee meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, this country's leading organization for brain research. His talk, laced with wit and humor, received a standing ovation. Ramachandran also delivered the "Decade of the Brain" lecture to the Library of congress and the NIH. Her received invitations to give The Dorcus Cumming Plenary Lecture at Cold Spring Harbor, and the Weissman Memorial Lecture at the Weissman Institute, Israel. He is in great demand as a speaker, both for scientific and lay audiences. Rama is on the editorial boards of several international journals and has published over 110 scientific papers, including three invited review articles for Scientific American. He edited a four volume Encyclopedia of Human Behavio that was cited by Library Journal as "the most outstanding reference for 1994 in the behavioral sciences." In 1995 he was elected a member of the Atheneum, the world's oldest scientific club, founded in London by Michael Faraday and Humphrey Davy . He has appeared on numerous television programs (PBS, BBC, German television) and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Discover, National Geographic, Time and Life. Originally trained as a physician at Stanley Medical College, where he was awarded gold medals in pathology and clinical medicine,Ramachandran went on to earn a PhD in neurology from Trinity College at Cambridge University. Before moving to La Jolla, he held appointments at Oxford University and the California Institute of Technology. In 1998 he received a Gold medal from the Australian national university and in "99 the Ariens Kappers Medal by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences for landmark achievements in neurosciences. In the same year he was elected a fellow of All Souls College Oxford. and Newsweek named him a member of the "Century Club" — one of hundred people to watch as America enters the next century. Today he works exclusively with human neurological patients and one of his main interests is in the neurological basis of art. He has been lecturing widely on this subject not only to scientists, but to art galleries and museums. — JB V.S. RAMACHANDRAN is professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and Director of Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego. He also holds joint appointments at the Salk Institute in La Jolla and with the Cognitive Sciences Program at UCSD. He is also a physician. A dynamic speaker who rolls his r's and flourishes vowels, Dr. Ramachandran gives scientific talks the world over. His book Phantoms In The Brain (with Sandra Blakeslee) was selected as one of the best books of 1998 by The Economist and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was on the "Editors Choice" list in Scientific American, Discover Magazine and The American Scientist. Click here for V.S. Ramachandran's Edge Bio page. New
Marc D. Hauser, Milford H. Wolpoff, V.S. Ramachandran, Nicholas Humphrey, Marc D. Hauser, V.S. Ramachandran, Robert Provine, Rafael Nunuz, William H. Calvin Join
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